Soeren Kern : French Elections: Populist Revolution or Status Quo?

French Elections: Populist Revolution or Status Quo?

"If the Macron bubble doesn't
pop, this may portend the realignment, not just of French politics, but
Western politics in general, away from the left-right division that has
defined Western politics since the French Revolution, towards a
division between the people and the elites." — Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry,
French political analyst.

"This divide is no longer between the left and the right, but
between patriots and globalists." — Marine Le Pen, French presidential
candidate.

The presidential election in France officially got underway on March 18, when the Constitutional Council announced that a total of eleven candidates will be facing off for the country's top political job.
The election is being closely followed in France and elsewhere as an
indicator of popular discontent with traditional parties and the
European Union, as well as with multiculturalism and continued mass
migration from the Muslim world.
The first round of voting will be held on April 23. If no single
candidate wins an absolute majority, the top two winners in the first
round will compete in a run-off on May 7.

If the election were held today, independent "progressive" candidate
Emmanuel Macron, who has never held elected office, would become the
next president of France, according to several opinion polls.
A BVA market research poll for Orange released on March 18 showed
that Marine Le Pen, the leader of the anti-establishment National Front
party, would win the first round with 26% of the votes, followed by
Macron with 25%. Conservative François Fillon is third (19.5%), followed
by radical Socialist Benoît Hamon (12.5%) and Leftist firebrand
Jean-Luc Mélenchon (12%).

For the first time, the two established parties, the Socialist Party
and the center-right Republicans, would be eliminated in the first
round.
In the second round, Macron, a 39-year-old pro-EU, pro-Islam globalist (platform here), would defeat Le Pen, a 48-year-old anti-EU, anti-Islam French nationalist (platform here), by a wide margin (62% to 38%), according to the poll.
Macron, a former investment banker, was an adviser to incumbent
Socialist President François Hollande, one of the most unpopular
presidents in modern French history. A long-time member of the Socialist
Party, Macron served in Hollande's cabinet for two years as economy
minister until August 2016, when he resigned to launch his rival
presidential bid to "transform France."
Macron, whose core base of support consists of young, urban
progressives, has tried to position himself in the political center,
between the Socialists and the conservatives. His meteoric rise has been
propelled by a scandal involving Fillon — who is the subject of a
criminal investigation over allegations that he used government money to
pay his wife and children more than €1 million ($1.1 million) for jobs
they never did — and because the Socialists fielded Hamon, a nonviable
candidate who has promised
to pay every French citizen over 18, regardless of whether or not they
are employed, a government-guaranteed monthly income of €750 ($800). The
annual cost to taxpayers would be €400 billion ($430 billion). By comparison, France's 2017 defense budget is €32.7 billion ($40 billion).
Macron's ascendancy comes amid heightened worries over security. More
than 230 people have been killed in attacks in France by Islamic
radicals during the past two years. The latest attack, on March 18, involved
a 39-year-old French-Tunisian jihadist who proclaimed that he wanted to
"die for Allah," and was shot dead after he tried to seize a soldier's
weapon at Orly Airport in Paris.

Shortly after the attack, Le Pen accused Macron and the rest of France's political establishment of "cowardice in the face of Islamic fundamentalism."
In an apparent effort to bolster his national security credentials, Macron on March 18 announced
a surprise proposal to restore compulsory military service. He said he
would require men and women between the ages of 18 and 21 to serve one
month in the armed forces.
"I want each young French person to be able to experience military life, however brief," Macron said.
"This is a major project of society, a real republican project, which
should allow our democracy to be more united and the resilience of our
society to be increased." Macron, if elected, would become the first
president in modern French history not to have performed military
service.

Observers say that Macron's national service proposal — which copies
Le Pen's proposal to reintroduce compulsory military service for a
period of at least three months — is an attempt to siphon votes away
from Le Pen and Fillon, both of whose campaign platforms call for a
strong national defense.
Macron's proposal, which will require an estimated €15 billion ($16
billion) upfront, and another €3 billion ($3.2 billion) each year to
maintain, has been met with derision because of its exorbitant cost and
dubious contribution to national security. Le Mondereminded its readers that France spends a similar amount (€3 billion annually) on nuclear deterrence.

Fillon's spokesman, Luc Chantel, said the proposal was "absurd and unrealistic" and added:

"Either it is a measure designed to discourage students
from quitting school, and this is not the mission of the army, or it is
training for the defense of France, and one month is a joke, it is a
discovery camp."

Some of Macron's other policy positions include:

European Federalism: Macron has repeatedly called for a stronger European Union. At a January 14 political rally in Lille, he said:
"We are Europe, we are Brussels, we wanted it and we need it. We need
Europe because Europe makes us bigger, because Europe makes us
stronger."

Single European Currency: In a January 10 speech
at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Macron, speaking impeccable
English, said: "The truth is that we must collectively recognize that
the euro is incomplete and cannot last without major reforms. It has not
provided Europe with full international sovereignty against the dollar
on its rules. It has not provided Europe with a natural convergence
between the different member states. The euro is a weak Deutsche mark,
the status quo is synonymous, in 10 years' time, with the dismantling of
the euro."

Migration Crisis: Macron has repeatedly praised German
Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door migration policy, which has allowed
more than two million mostly Muslim migrants into Germany since January
2015.
In a January 1, 2017 interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung,
Macron accused critics of Merkel's open-door migration policy of
"disgraceful oversimplification." He said: "Merkel and German society as
a whole exemplified our common European values. They saved our
collective dignity by accepting, accommodating and educating distressed
refugees."
In a February 4 rally in Lyon, Macron mocked
U.S. President Donald Trump's pledge to build a wall with Mexico: "I do
not want to build a wall. I can assure you there is no wall in my
program. Can you remember the Maginot Line?" he said, referring to a
failed row of fortifications that France built in the 1930s to deter an
invasion by Germany.

Islamic Terrorism: Macron has said he believes
the solution to jihadist terrorism is more European federalism:
"Terrorism wants to destroy Europe. We must quickly create a sovereign
Europe that is capable of protecting us against external dangers in
order to better ensure internal security. We also need to overcome
national unwillingness and create a common European intelligence system
that will allow the effective hunting of criminals and terrorists."

Islam: Macron has said he believes
that French security policy has unfairly targeted Muslims and that
"secularism should not be brandished to as a weapon to fight Islam." At
an October 2016 rally in Montpellier, he rejected President Hollande's assertion
that "France has a problem with Islam." Instead, Macron said: "No
religion is a problem in France today. If the state should be neutral,
which is at the heart of secularism, we have a duty to let everybody
practice their religion with dignity." He also insisted
that the Islamic State is not Islamic: "What poses a problem is not
Islam, but certain behaviors that are said to be religious and then
imposed on persons who practice that religion."

National Defense: Macron supports NATO, and has pledged to
increase French defense spending to reach 2% of GDP by 2025 — a level
to which all NATO members agreed in 2006. At the same time, Macron
believes in the need to create an "autonomous" European defense
capability, also known as a European Army, which would duplicate military capabilities which already exist within NATO.

An Ifop poll for the Journal du Dimanche published on March 18 found
that French voters are divided into "two quasi-equal blocks" about
Macron's honesty and his ability to govern. According to the survey,
only 46% of French people believe he will be "able to guarantee the
safety of the French people." More than half (52%) of respondents said
they were "worried" about Macron, while 52% said they doubted his
honesty.
In an interview with BMFTV, Laurence Haïm, a Canal+ reporter who was
accredited to the White House and who recently joined Macron's team, described
Macron as the "French Obama." She added: "I think that in today's world
we need renewal, from someone young, who is not a politician. He wants
to make the democratic revolution."
So what is driving Macron's political ascendancy? French analyst Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry explains:

"The best way to look at Macron is as a kind of anti-Le
Pen, or, to stretch the bounds of logic even further, a 'populist from
the top.' If Le Pen is anti-establishment, Macron is the incarnation of
the French establishment, a graduate of ENA, the top civil service
school that trains the country's elites, and a member of the Inspection
des Finances, the most elite civil service track. His only experience in
the private sector is through the revolving door as an investment
banker. And yet, Macron sounds off populist rhetoric: His candidacy, he
says, is about sweeping out a corrupt system (even as he is supported by
the vast majority of the French establishment).
"It would be only slightly churlish to say that the parts of the
system Macron wants to do away with are the democratic ones; witness his
full-throated support for the EU in a country that has rejected it at
the polls. Macron supports various liberalizing reforms, and Angela
Merkel's welcoming policy towards migrants. He is, of course, a social
liberal. In a country that takes culture very seriously, he has argued
that there is 'no such thing' as French culture; rather, there are many
cultures with which the French perform a kind of synthesis. His biggest
donors seem to be French tax exiles residing in London and Brussels.
"In other words, he is the mirror image of the political realignment
that is transforming Western politics. If the familiar motley crew of
populists — Trump, Le Pen — are the candidates for those who lost out
from globalization, then Macron is the candidate of the winners. In both
cases, they seem to make old left-right divisions obsolete. If the
Macron bubble doesn't pop, this may portend the realignment, not just of
French politics, but Western politics in general, away from the
left-right division that has defined Western politics since the French
Revolution, towards a division between the people and the elites.

"The old left-right debates have outlived their
usefulness. Primaries have shown that debates about secularism or
immigration, as well as globalization or generalized deregulation,
constitute a fundamental and transversal divide. This divide is no
longer between the left and the right, but between patriots and
globalists."The collapse of traditional parties and the systematic disappearance
of almost all of their leaders shows that a great political
re-composition has begun."

At that same rally, Le Pen launched
a two-pronged attack on globalization and radical Islam. She also
promised French voters a referendum on remaining in the European Union
in order "to allow us to recover our four sovereignties: monetary,
economic, legislative and territorial."
She went on to articulate exactly what is at stake for France in this election:

In all respects, this presidential election is unlike
previous ones. Its outcome will determine the future of France as a free
nation and our existence as a people.
After decades of errors and cowardice, we are at a crossroads. I say
it with gravity: the choice we will have to make in this election is a
choice of civilization.
The question is simple and cruel: will our children live in a free,
independent, democratic country? Will they still be able to refer to our
system of values? Will they have the same way of life as we did and our
parents before us?
Will our children, and the children of our children, still have a
job, a decent wage, the possibility of building up a patrimony, becoming
an owner, starting a family in a safe environment, being properly cared
for, to grow old with dignity?
Will our children have the same rights as us?
Will they live according to our cultural references, our values ​​of
civilization, our style of living, and will they even speak our French
language, which is disintegrating under the blows of political leaders
who squander this national treasure — for example, by choosing a slogan
in English to promote the candidacy of Paris to host the 2024 Olympic
Games?
Will they have the right to claim French culture when certain
candidates for the presidential election, puffed up by their own
empty-headedness, explain that it does not exist?
I ask this important question because, unlike our adversaries, I am
interested not only in the material heritage of the French, but I also
want to defend our immaterial capital. This immaterial capital is
priceless because this heritage is irreplaceable. In fact, I am
defending the load-bearing walls of our society.

The choice for French voters is clear: Le Pen is the
anti-establishment change candidate and Macron is the pro-establishment
status quo candidate.

Le Pen is offering voters an historic opportunity to reassess
relations with the European Union, reassert national sovereignty and
stanch the flow of mass migration from the Muslim world. By contrast,
Macron is offering voters increased European federalism, the
transference of yet more national sovereignty to the European Union, and
the further multiculturalization of French society.
If polls are any indication, French voters appear to be more
comfortable with the status quo. The populist revolution that began in
June 2016 when British voters decided to leave the European Union, and
cross the Atlantic in November when Americans elected U.S. President
Donald J. Trump, will not be spreading to France in 2017.

Subscribe To

Followers

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make such material available in an effort to advance awareness and understanding of issues relating to civil rights, religious tolerance, economics, individual rights, international affairs, liberty, science & technology, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.